Why do SWToR shadows look so bad and impact performance so much?

[Kserberus]

This is almost certainly yet another case of SWTOR devs not owning any ATI products.

 

For everybody posting shots, just say if you have Nvidia or ATI. Bet you all the people with the lego-shadows are ATI.

 

http://img.xrmb2.net/?imgID=708201

 

Screenshot, 30 seconds old, on Nar Shaddaa, GTX 570

Edited January 13, 2012 by Kserberus

[jedi-outcast]

My shadows remind me of the Q*bert gameboard, or that the galaxy is comprised of blocks. Settings maxed and everything else looks quite OK. 1920x1080 resolution.

[Apax]

You could be a little more accurate with the circumstances.

 

Your requests have gone as follows;

 

"Post a screen and prove it"

 

"Hey where's your screen with proof?"

 

"That's from beta which was better, post one from live"

 

"show your fps to"

 

"that's inside, post on a planet"

 

"That's too far pulled back, you're trying to spin data"

 

So when you're going to assume what may or may not be too much to ask, be straight up about what's been asked and proveded so far.

 

You're jumping to the defense of someone who is intentionally trying to be misleading. It's as simple as that. From zooming out to make the shadows (the subject of the image) ridiculously small, to making sure his character was jumping when he took them so the avatar shadow was balled up and difficult to analyze. Regardless of how long he spent taking those images it was all ultimately aimed at wasting our time.

 

Players don't need to be held by a hand and issued specific instructions to take reasonable comparison screenshots. There's this thing called common sense. And I feel that when someone is debating a point they should be able to simply rely on facts and the truth without dressing it up in a whole lot of misdirection. If an argument can't stand on its own legs then it's time to reexamine your point of view.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Apax

[Culveren]

then don't buy it... just about every game offers better quality based on hardware. if you don't have the right card some options just won't be available. physx, dx11, dx10, etc...

 

That is not really how it works, you might see different performance or FPS, and you may notice a difference between Catalyst and Nvida control panel (unless you supplement with nvidia inspector), but with the same exact settings the game should look exactly the same minus frame rate on a gfx card capable of running DX9.

 

Think of them more as car engines. Some companies use V8s and others will turbo v6s, but both produce horsepower and torque. And as long as they produce the same amount of each, a V8 and V6 will perform the same and only sound different (of course this is over simplified, i am well aware of other factors such as weight and turbo lag).

 

This is how a GPU works, it renders what it is told to render, so the settings determine what is being rendered not the GPU. Be it ATI or Nvidia both will produce the same visual results provided they are being told to render the same settings.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Culveren

[Jounar]

http://img.xrmb2.net/?imgID=708201

 

Screenshot, 30 seconds old, on Nar Shaddaa, GTX 570

 

Those look exactly like the shadows I get on Tatooine using an ATI 5870. As other have stated the quality of shadows seems to change dramatically depending if you're indoors, on the fleet or outdoors.

 

Such a huge variation in shadow quality has to mean the Hero engine is either not up to the job, not optimized correctly, Bioware coders suck or maybe all 3. If as some folks in this thread as seem to think that the Hero engine is using the CPU over the GPU it could explain why player with high spec but perhaps dual core systems are suffering horrid framerate issues even with the medium graphics settings this game uses.

[Bazkraal]

It's amazing how crappy this game is (visually) when you think about it. I'm guessing that the driver support is CRAP for both red and green team. The shadows look like something I build on minecraft - AND THERE'S NO DENYING THAT. The texture have NO DEPTH what so ever. Nothing feels alive, where is the physics 2012 standard? I'm amazed how people can say that this looks fantastic. It's acceptable at best. Bioware got to get their act together and optimize this freak of a game engine and add some DX11 or at least dx-freaking-2005-10 effect. Dammit why have a card from the green 400 series and up or a red from the 4000 series and up if there is no utilizing what they can do (and have been able to do for the past almost-decade!?)

 

If some of you didn't know this before I'm going to repeat what have been said by a previous poster: The performance (FPS) is HIGHER with DX11 then with DX9 since DX11 is using new technology that isn't as ineffective as DX9. Also by moving from DX9 to 11 is not the same as epic graphics but it opens up some seriously muuuuuuuuuch better effects. Why can't swtor have a decent engine that allows people with not so good computers to run on dx10 (which is a standard now) and people like me with very good computers to run in DX11?

 

WHY?

 

And why is there no high res textures?!

[Skeppers]

I could care less about the quality of shadows, but I do care about science. You cannot make any scientifically valid statement about the quality of shadows and their impact on performance by visually comparing two screenshots, regardless of how similar the conditions are. At most you can make a statement about the quality of the two screenshots relative to each other. Please don't drag science into this.

 

 

Sorry, had to be done

 

[Jounar]

It's amazing how crappy this game is (visually) when you think about it. I'm guessing that the driver support is CRAP for both red and green team. The shadows look like something I build on minecraft - AND THERE'S NO DENYING THAT. The texture have NO DEPTH what so ever. Nothing feels alive, where is the physics 2012 standard? I'm amazed how people can say that this looks fantastic. It's acceptable at best. Bioware got to get their act together and optimize this freak of a game engine and add some DX11 or at least dx-freaking-2005-10 effect. Dammit why have a card from the green 400 series and up or a red from the 4000 series and up if there is no utilizing what they can do (and have been able to do for the past almost-decade!?)

 

If some of you didn't know this before I'm going to repeat what have been said by a previous poster: The performance (FPS) is HIGHER with DX11 then with DX9 since DX11 is using new technology that isn't as ineffective as DX9. Also by moving from DX9 to 11 is not the same as epic graphics but it opens up some seriously muuuuuuuuuch better effects. Why can't swtor have a decent engine that allows people with not so good computers to run on dx10 (which is a standard now) and people like me with very good computers to run in DX11?

 

WHY?

 

And why is there no high res textures?!

 

In Nov 2007 the best graphics card on the market seems to be 8800 Ultra which was a DX10 card.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card,1718-4.html

 

Bioware picking the Hero engine for SWTOR was also around 2007 which might be the reason SWTOR is not able to run DX11 level graphics and why the current ingame graphics look like something from a 2007 game.

[decampo]

There's videos on Youtube of people using the HeroEngine (will try to find to link) which shows the different shadow settings developers can set. When set to the lower levels they look EXACTLY the same as the ones we get in SWTOR. It has nothing to do with AMD or nVidia graphic cards, it is enforced through the engine. Hence, it is yet another graphical limitation BioWare have placed on the game because of performance, and lets not forget the performance is lacking even with these abysmal shadows.

 

Surely nobody can argue against the engine being anything other than sub-par! We have terrible shadows, which impact performance more so than other games Ultra shadow settings, coupled with low resolution armor textures.

 

People have issues with the graphics but how much better would this game look with decent shadows and high resolution armor textures? Other more graphically demanding MMOs seem to achieve this so either BioWare's developers are less talented (highly doubtful) or the engine they are using is rubbish. I think it's obvious which seems more likely.

 

I'm amazed that BioWare thought it was satisfactory to release the game like this. I sent loads of tickets during the beta highlighting issues such as these but never got a response. I like the game and it does have potential but it's things like this which is why I've cancelled my subscription.

Edited January 13, 2012 by decampo

[eadnams]

As someone who works in pre-rendered CG based stuff... I'll take a stab at why... It looks like the game uses a combination of Bitmapped shadow maps and vector based shadows.

 

Bitmapped shadow maps are like textures, they have a specific resolution, usually set by either the light source, or the object. Bitmapped shadow maps are a cheap way to do softer shadows.

 

The light will be set to have a shadow map of, lets say 512x512. The larger the light's throw, the more pixellated the shadow map becomes.

 

However, It could also be that the shadow map is generated per-object, which means each object (or model) has a set size for its shadow map... This should make the shadows look better than they do, except it would use significantly more memory. BUT ToR uses 'texture atlasing', and if its making an atlas for many of the shadows, that could lower the resolution.

 

Vector based shadows do not have this issue, as it essentially projects a polygon for the shadow(thus having sharp edges, but no soft shadows), and less of a performance hit.

 

Just throwing out the info. Programmers, let me know if thats how it works in real-time 3D

[mightylawngnome]

You're jumping to the defense of someone who is intentionally trying to be misleading. It's as simple as that. From zooming out to make the shadows (the subject of the image) ridiculously small, to making sure his character was jumping when he took them so the avatar shadow was balled up and difficult to analyze. Regardless of how long he spent taking those images it was all ultimately aimed at wasting our time.

 

Players don't need to be held by a hand and issued specific instructions to take reasonable comparison screenshots. There's this thing called common sense. And I feel that when someone is debating a point they should be able to simply rely on facts and the truth without dressing it up in a whole lot of misdirection. If an argument can't stand on its own legs then it's time to reexamine your point of view.

 

We agree on logic and common sense but differ in where we feel it should be applied here.

Your arguments don't stand on their own and require assumption and suspicion to tread water.

 

Many, many players don't even know how to take a screen shot, so let's. It make rediculous statements about hand holding.

 

It's fair to assume that he took every ss with the same camera distance, since clipping on building architecture may force the camera in closer than its actual setting. As for the jumping, unless you want to claim the the shadows render differently for companions, his is standing right next to him at the same camera distance standing still. I would hope is evil genius intentions to conceal the truth would have caught that, considering all the effort he's putting in merely to debunk a universal truth on the quality of the games graphics.

[Gasaraki-]

Wow, those shadows are horrible.

 

I agree the shadows in this game suck BUT mine do not suck that bad. They are just a little blocky. Need some anti-aliasing.

[eadnams]

Wow, those shadows are horrible.

 

I agree the shadows in this game suck BUT mine do not suck that bad. They are just a little blocky. Need some anti-aliasing.

 

Yea, I think he has an out-of-game setting set to 'performance', as I've never seen them THAT bad... the shadows dont so much need anti-aliasing, as just blurring or softening.

[tmpearson]

1920x1080 Max settings, forced 8x AA

[KeatoHarrolo]

The Shadows appear like that when you alt tab out.

 

Well it does for me. When I first join a game my shadows are fine but if I alt tab out of the game they mess up like the OPs screenshots.

[TheEwokKiss]

I have them too.

 

Sorry, but I don't buy that TOR is the first video game in history where you toggle better-looking graphics options by swapping components in and out of your system, instead of selecting them from an options menu.

 

lol i love this thx man

[Mannic]

As someone who works in pre-rendered CG based stuff... I'll take a stab at why... It looks like the game uses a combination of Bitmapped shadow maps and vector based shadows.

 

Bitmapped shadow maps are like textures, they have a specific resolution, usually set by either the light source, or the object. Bitmapped shadow maps are a cheap way to do softer shadows.

 

The light will be set to have a shadow map of, lets say 512x512. The larger the light's throw, the more pixellated the shadow map becomes.

 

However, It could also be that the shadow map is generated per-object, which means each object (or model) has a set size for its shadow map... This should make the shadows look better than they do, except it would use significantly more memory. BUT ToR uses 'texture atlasing', and if its making an atlas for many of the shadows, that could lower the resolution.

 

Vector based shadows do not have this issue, as it essentially projects a polygon for the shadow(thus having sharp edges, but no soft shadows), and less of a performance hit.

 

Just throwing out the info. Programmers, let me know if thats how it works in real-time 3D

 

This would explain why the farther away a shadow is from its source, the more comically exaggerated the pixelation becomes. The engine is just, straight magnifying the shadow map without rendering it with any more detail.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Mannic

[Darth_Grissom]

Maybe im doing somthing wrong but I have a EVGA Superclocked gtx 560. I went into the Nvidia control settings and changed stuff around but i cant get the shadows to look anything like Wows shadows.

[decampo]

 

Skip to 9:22 where the tutor demonstrates the different shadow settings.

Edited January 13, 2012 by decampo

[sdream]

As someone who works in pre-rendered CG based stuff... I'll take a stab at why... It looks like the game uses a combination of Bitmapped shadow maps and vector based shadows.

 

Not to be an $#@ but if you do CGI, you should know the proper names for shadow types i.e shadow maps (bitmaps) and raytraced (what ya called vector) shadows. These are 2 classic ways renderes produce shadow from standard CG lights (single point light source).

 

The game definitely doesn't do raytraced shadows for sure.

[tmpearson]

I also have an issue where moving objects in the distance appear to stutter and look like a slideshow.

[notebene]

And since 1.0.2, shadows cause 'flashy trees' on my nVidia only during conversation scenes where there is any foliage. This didn't happen before that patch.

 

Other than that, with AA forced on, everything looks amazing to me, except the shadows, which are mediocre, and if I disable them (there is a medium setting, but basically that and low produce the same results for me), flashy trees in dialog problem goes away.

 

So there's another shadow related issue.

 

And to pre-answer some questions:

 

1) Yes

2) It's awesome, cost $500

3) That all looks amazing

4) I remembered to do that

5) Way ahead of you there

 

[Jounar]

 

Skip to 9:22 where the tutor demonstrates the different shadow settings.

 

Even with just the one avatar on an empty low detail flat area it stutters so badly

 

It would be funny if it wasn't the engine this game uses

[eadnams]

Not to be an $#@ but if you do CGI, you should know the proper names for shadow types i.e shadow maps (bitmaps) and raytraced (what ya called vector) shadows. These are 2 classic ways renderes produce shadow from standard CG lights (single point light source).

 

The game definitely doesn't do raytraced shadows for sure.

 

I am also a teacher, and decided to simplify to help educate the audience, thanks.

 

Also, raytracing is not always the same as a polygonal based shadow, in the case of real-time graphics.

[AislingKerrigan]

Shadows have a serious jigsaw look to them. It's disappointing. Add it to the list of problems with the game's graphics. No native AA support, the lack of high-res character textures, serious performance issues, graphic artifacts.

 

I love the game and I'll be subscribing for at least a few months.. but I'm not blind to the issues like some of the fanbots in this thread appear to be.